I agree with all of that except for the conclusion (the last line).
I am still smarting from the accusation of not being a native speaker of
English.
But it is even worse to be thought of as North American!
John O'Gorman
Guenter Milde wrote:
>
> > > > Basically it is not worth persuing this debate much further.
> >
> > Probably, but it's like an itch you just can't stop scratching.
> >
> > Robin
>
> Echsactly :-)
>
> On Sat, 1 Sep 2001 16:21:50 +1000 (GMT+1000) wrote Allan Rae
><[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> > Russell's more refined responses follow.
> > On Sat, 1 Sep 2001, John O'Gorman wrote:
> > > Were it to pronounced x it would be Tex not TeX.
> >
> > These non-native English speakers are creating a phenomenon with which
> > this native speaker has not the joy to be acquainted, viz. the change of
> > the phonemic value of a letter when it is capitalized.
>
> Hej, hej, I thought Mr. O'Gorman might be non-native English speaker but
> native North-American English speaker.
>
> > I do not know that this can happen in ANY language.
>
> Actually, already the capitalization of a letter in the middle of a word is
> a break of the rules of almost every language (excluding Hackish, the
> LanguageOfComputerScientistsAndProgrammers)
>
> [ There is dispute, whether the Neo-German construct "ProgrammiererInnen"
> as a shortcut for "Programmierer und Programmiererinnen" is to be
> considered as an new rule (as it is common use that make the rules) or as
> bad German, and also how this construct should be pronounced.]
>
>
> > Now a logo or trademark can have
> > symbols in it, which may look like one letter while being pronounced
> > as another, but such constructions have stopped being words. The WORD TeX
> > must be pronounced in conformity with the orthographical rules of the
> > languauge.
>
> Also "TeX" is not a word but a "trademark". Pronunciation of a trademark can
> be determined by the owner (if he/she has enough means to persuade folks to
> follow the prescribed pronunciation).
>
> So, let's look at the historic, cultural and linguistic context:
>
> When trying to write a book about mathematics, Prof. Knuth decided to use a
> computer. Next he decided he needs a program capable of doing a good job.
> Thsi did not exist, so he decided to write one. Next he took a sabbatical,
> studied typography, invented a new programming style (literate programming)
> and language (web) and wrote two compilers for it (weave and tangle),
> started to program a font designer and a typsetting program (\Metafont and
> \TeX) invented logos for both and implemented commands to render the logos
> with \TeX, documented this work in "Computers and the art of typsetting"
> and only after this all done, he wrote "Concrete Mathematics".
>
> You might get the point, that D. Knuth is an extraordinary man which
> also manifests itself in the naming convention:
>
> D.K. set the following rules:
>
> 1. The logo for the program is
>
> T X
> E
>
> (with the E halfway down). If ever possible, you should use the logo to
> reference the product. You get the proper rendering of the logo with the
> TeX-command \TeX.
>
> 2. The logo stands for Tau Epsilon Chi and has to be pronounced accordingly.
>
> 3. If someone doesnot use the program and therefore cannot use the
> command \TeX for proper rendering of the logo, the form TeX shall be used.
>
> Comments:
>
> This choice should mark the connections of TeX to both
>
> a) the greek techni/techne = art (in the sense of craftmansskip, cf. the
> french "artisan" and techn + ike -> Technik, technique)
> (Cf. the booktitle "Computers and the Art of Typesetting".)
>
> b) the latin texere = weave (which is the root of text (i.e. woven
> words/sentences)
> (Cf. the helper programs "weave" and "tangle" and the language "web".)
>
> to 1. The logo T E X uses only types that are present in both, latin and
> greek alphabets. (Although the X stands for different letters)
>
> to 2. Fair enough, the owner of a logo can determine what it stands for and
> how to pronounce it.
>
> However, if it really represents three distinct greek letters, we are
> missing a statement, what these letters stand for (in the sense of
> "gnu" = Gnu is Not Unix)
>
> Furthermore, there is still ambiquity, as T.E.X. is not TEX:
>
> [GM] ... it is to be read as Tau Epsilon Chi.
> [Russel] which is to be pronounced tek- as in: technical
>
> Pronunciation of CH depends on context. "tech" is pronounced
> different to "chi" in English (or do you really say [ki]?).
>
> to 3. This one is problematic: TeX as "ASCII-Art" for the logo uses Latin
> letters (as pure ASCII has no greek ones). Following the conventions
> the transcript should have been TECH, or (with ASCII-Art for the
> halfway down Epsion) TeCH.
>
> Clearly this does not look nice and therefore TeX is some kind of
> second trademark (As, e.g. Coca Cola and Coke are two trademarks for
> one fluid).
>
> Due to the contradiciton in 3., it took the author many persuading work to
> get (at least the computer-) people recieve TeX as [tech] but finally he
> succeeded.
>
> The advent of the various extensions and connected programs (AMSTeX, LaTeX,
> BibTeX, TkBibTeX, ...) led some computer people to a misunderstanding and
> overgeneralisation of D. Knuth's three rules - leading to the (strange)
> idea that every capitalized X at the end of a TeX related program is a Chi.
>
> (BTW. Should Makeindex really be pronounced [Makeindech], if it where written
> MakeindeX????)
>
> Now let us have a look at the historic, cultural and linguistic context of
> "LyX":
>
> 1. LyX is a LaTeX frontent using the Xforms library of the X-Windows
> environment.
>
> 2. The original name is Lyrix.
>
> 3. The inventor of the name is German.
>
> Comments:
>
> Lyrix roots in greek Lyra (a musical instrument). Lyrics (lyric poetry) is
> derived by the suffix -ike. This is quite common, other examples are physics
> (Physik), technique (Technik), mechanics (Mechanik), arithmetic
> (Arithmetik), semantics (Semantik)... Many of these have the English ending
> -ics which rhymes on unics->unix. This implies, that also the x in Lyrix
> comes from unix, i.e. it is an x as in "Asterix" and not a chi as in
> "gl�cklich".
>
> The short form LyX is a three letter sequence that ends on x as TeX does.
> Thus it is a nice idea to render it the same way. (As the command
> \newcommand{\LyX}{L\kern-.1667em\lower.25em\hbox{Y}%
> \kern-.125emX\spacefactor1000}
> (defined in every LyX-generated LaTex-file) does.
>
> Still, this rendering doesnot change the pronunciation, as a
> rule-breaking/new-rule-defining statement that LyX shall from now on be El
> Ypsion Chi is missing. There seems to be consensus among the developers that
> \LyX is just visual markup.
>
> There is also an explanation for the acronym (Besides the Swedish reading
> LyX = lyx = luxury):-)
>
> LyX is a combination of LaTeX and X-Windows,
> in Spanish
> LyX = "LaTeX y X"
>
> Depending on whether you are willing to honour the foreign origin of the
> word you pronounce it the way the author would [l�ks] or (if not able or
> willing to produce the y sound the "German" way) the Americanized version
> [liks].
>
> Summary:
>
> LyX is like TeX:
>
> TeX is a programm to typeset a text,
> it is written in web,
> it is translated with weave,
> in ASCII it is rendered TeX,
>
> But, Surprise Surprise, it is Tau Epsilon Chi and thus [tech].
>
> LyX is a frontend to (La)TeX,
> it is a three letter sequence ending on X,
> the Logo is ASCII-rendered with a downcase middle letter,
> it defines a command \LyX similar to \TeX,
>
> But, Surprise Surprise, it is El ypsilon Ix and thus [lyks]
>
> Guenter
>
> --
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
